Drawing on the Arts Across Ontario’s Worldwide Conferences
The arts have been integral and vibrant throughout the current wave of worldwide conferences taking place across Ontario. In both rural and urban contexts, the over 3000 friends who have so far gathered together in over a dozen conferences have experienced the way “the arts as a whole, so integral a part of the development […]
Preparing for a Wave of Conferences Across Ontario
Twenty-three conferences will be taking place between early May and late June in Ontario. This series of conferences is part of launching the Nine Year Plan, focusing on exploring the oneness of humanity and a universal call to work towards the betterment of the world. These conferences are connected to a wave of worldwide conferences, […]
Humbly Learning About Contributing to Discourses of Society
As groups of friends and families across Ontario are gathering to study the recent guidance of the Universal House of Justice, they are noting the broadening focus of the Nine Year Plan, encompassing three interconnected areas of endeavour: expansion and consolidation, social action and participating in the discourses of society. While “the endeavours of the […]
Preparing for the Nine-Year-Plan: Turning to New Guidance Across Ontario
Families, teams of friends, entire communities and those serving on institutions turn with eagerness to new guidance for the Nine-Year-Plan.
Strong Nucleus, Strong Activities, Strong Friendships
In the wide-spread cluster of Lennox, Addington and South Hastings, a group of friends is discovering just how much a nucleus of friends who are working and consulting together and arranging activities contributes to the growth and well-being of their cluster. Since they started meeting in September, the group has been committed to meeting every […]
A Vibrant Festival in the Victoria Hills Neighbourhood Kick-starts Fall Activities
Written by Maryam Ahrari, Emily Glabush & Núr Elmasri Summer has come and gone in a flurry, and we are not only reflecting on our learnings but sustaining a trail of neighbourhood activities which have continued into the fall here in Victoria Hills, Kitchener. One event that contributed greatly to the energy and spirit of […]
Having Conversations with Families in Bayview Mews
A group of families living in the Bayview Mews neighbourhood of Toronto, near Sheppard and Bayview, have been learning for the last 6 years about working with families. In that time, they have begun a children’s class which is now on the precipice of having four concurrent grade levels. For several years, the team has […]
Beautifying the Neighbourhood Unity Centre in Sudbury with LiveLoveLouder
Written by: Rebecca Hamilton-Bachiu & Chandyn Bachiu The team in the Sudbury-Manitoulin Cluster entered the summer of 2020 with audacious goals to advance the community building process and were curious about the possibility of collaborating with likeminded organizations. The Universal House of Justice describes how “initiatives of this kind emerge organically out of the junior […]
“Hardwired to Make Efforts”: Reflections on Youth Service
Since the initial youth conferences held in 2013, many cohorts of youth have reflected on the idea that “in selfless service to society is the possibility for both personal growth and enhancing capacity to contribute to social progress.”[1] At the outset of the One Year Plan, a growing number of youth, along with friends of […]
“She Elevates my Soul”: Friendship on Georgina Island
Mandana Sabet has been visiting Indigenous communities in Canada and Greenland since she arrived in Canada decades ago. Alongside Bahá’í friends in Newmarket and Georgina, in the York North Cluster, Mandana has been building relationships with families living on the Georgina Island reserve for some time. She recalls a friend calling her to say there […]
“We became a food hub”: The power of collaboration in Vaughan
Sunder Singh grew up in India. When she was 14, she met three fashionable Persian women in the marketplace. They were so kind and friendly that she invited them to her home. For the rest of her life, she remembered this encounter. “The gentleness about them stayed with me,” she says. She also remembered the […]
Service Week in St. James Town
In the fall of 2020, the team in Toronto’s densely-populated neighbourhood of St. James Town was thinking about how their efforts to draw new youth into the community-building process could continue. Winter was looming, and restrictions around the pandemic were likely to increase. They were conscious of the need to weave together a pattern of […]
Developing Virtues on a Farm in Martintown
The Tremblay-Savoie family lives on their farm, Nature’s Acres Homestead in Martintown, Ontario, in the Cornwall cluster. Alex and Zac, both participants in a junior youth group, created this video, wishing all the friends a Happy Naw-Rúz and describing daily life on their farm. With humour and joy, the twin brothers reflect on how their […]
Touching the Hearts Through Service and Artmaking in Ruddington
The Ruddington Drive neighbourhood is comprised of seven apartment buildings with a population of about 3,200 people in the North West of Toronto. Newcomers from China, Iran, Hong Kong and South Korea make up close to 60% of the population and almost 30% of the population are young people. Since 2014, the expanding nucleus of […]
Malika’s Magical Mask: Brampton Collaborators Publish a Children’s Book
In Springdale, a neighbourhood in Brampton, the community of friends serving and praying together has grown significantly and stirrings of social action have become apparent. The process of growth began in the Springdale neighbourhood of Brampton in 2011. In the years since then, numerous cohorts of young people have graduated from the junior youth program […]
Highlights from Bethany: Kitchen Transformation: From Grimy to Gleaming
Confirmations seem to fill the walls of the Bethany Baha’i Centre of Learning as dedicated volunteers work to bring the centre up to code. Emad Toukan, Property Manager at Bethany, invited Hamed Saberi to give input into the kitchen renovation at the centre. Not only is Hamed a professional kitchen designer and cabinet maker but […]
Highlights from Bethany: “See Saw Margory Daw:” Who Can Learn to use a Chainsaw?
While Aida Ghodrati never expected to become a proficient chainsaw operator it fits well with one of her life’s goals: breaking down gender stereotypes one by one. Just because men usually operate chainsaws doesn’t mean a woman can’t learn how to use one, she decided. Ghodrati is a mechanical designer who spent half her life […]
“A True Rallying Point”: A New Neighbourhood Centre in Sudbury
In early November 2020, through support from the region, the friends in Sudbury were able to lease a neighbourhood centre, at the exact midpoint between the Flour Mill and Louis Street focus neighbourhoods, just a kilometer apart. Having their own space became a necessity after the summer and fall cycles of intense activity when, despite […]